e bread, but she had to throw it
to them. She divided it amongst them, not forgetting to favour the
little ones, and she thought it strange that they could distinguish her
from the novices. That much they knew of the upper air. The fish watched
her out of their beady eyes, stirring in their dim atmosphere with a
strange, finny motion.

At that hour of the day the sun was warm enough to sit out; the little
shiver in the air was not unpleasant; and sitting on the garden bench,
she opened her book in a little tremor of excitement. Her thoughts
fluttered, and she strove to imagine what book the saint could have
written to justify so beautiful a title. Her expectations were realised.
The character of the book is clearly defined in the first pages: she
perceived it to be a complete manual of convent life, a perfect
compendium of a nun's soul. On its pages lay that shadowy, evanescent
and hardly apprehensible thing--the soul of a nun, only the soul, not a
word regarding her daily life: any mother-abbess could have written such
a materialistic book: St. Teresa, with the instinct of her genius,
addressed herself to the task which none but she could fulfil--the
evolution of a nun's soul. And as Evelyn read she marked the passages
that specially caught her attention.

"Do not imagine, my daughters, that it is useless to pray, as you
are constantly praying, for the defenders of the Church: Have a
care lest you should share the opinion of certain folk to whom it
seems hard that they should not pray much oftener for themselves.
Believe me that no prayer is better or more profitable than that of
which I am speaking. Perhaps you fear that it will not go to
diminish the pains which you will suffer in purgatory: I answer
that such prayer is too holy and too pleasing to God to be useless.
Even if the time of your expiation should be a little longer--well,
let it be so."

"Oh, to be good like that," she thought. And her soul raised its eyes
in a little shy emulation.... A few pages further on she read--

"That all may take heed. For neglect of this counsel a nun may find
herself in an entanglement from which she may not find strength to
free herself. And then, great God! What feebleness, what puerile
complaisances this particular friendship may not be the source. It
is impossible to say what number, none but an eye-witness may
believe. They are but trif